When Florida Gators (from left) Sharrif Floyd, Dominique Easley and Damien Jacobs celebrated a big defensive play over LSU on Saturday, they had company in Columbus with former Gators coach Urban Meyer, who recruited all three players, along with a large part of the Florida roster. "Absolutely," Meyer said Monday. "Always be a Gator."Will Vragovic, Tampa Bay Times

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Every former coach has at least a little something to do with the success or failure of the guy who follows him.

A Sporting News story in April suggested that Florida lacked talent during a 7-6 season last year in Will Muschamp's first season succeeding Urban Meyer. Under the headline “From champs to chomped: How Urban Meyer broke Florida football,” the story made national news and rankled Meyer, more for what the story said about how he ran his program in his final years there.

Right now, Meyer is 6-0 and ranked No. 8 in the nation while leaning on players recruited by Jim Tressel and his staff at Ohio State. Florida is 5-0 and ranked No. 4 after Saturday's win over LSU, and certainly helped by many players recruited by Meyer and his staff at Florida.

The greatest credit, obviously, belongs to Meyer at Ohio State and Muschamp at Florida. But asked on Monday, Meyer said he still keeps an eye on his former guys.

“Absolutely. Always be a Gator. I keep in touch with some of those players,” Meyer said. “Great win. Great, tough win against a tough opponent, absolutely.”

He then responded to the idea that he may have left the cupboard bare in Gainesville.

“I don't want to get into all that cupboard is bare, because that's one man's opinion, and it's not. We've got to move on,” Meyer said. “I'm very proud of those guys. Love those guys. Really proud to see (quarterback) Jeff Driskel play well. He's a heck of a player.”

In fact, most of Ohio State's new assistants are watching the success of the programs they left. Tim Hinton and Ed Warinner came from 5-0 Notre Dame, Kerry Coombs from 4-0 Cincinnati, Tom Herman from 4-1 Iowa State, Everett Withers from 4-2 North Carolina and Zach Smith from 2-2 Temple.

Coombs was an assistant at Cincinnati for five years and before that a high school coach in the Cincinnati area. His son, Dylan, plays for the Bearcats, so he's very aware of Cincinnati's No. 21 ranking.

“I stay in close contact with the Bearcats,” Coombs said. “I'm extremely proud of those kids at Cincinnati, those coaches are my friends and that's my town, that's where I was born and raised. For them to be in the top 25 is fantastic. Those are kids that I raised. I recruited about 60 percent of that team. I love those kids and I love those coaches and I want nothing but the best for them.

“I hope they win every week. It's a different football team than the Ohio State Buckeyes. The Ohio State Buckeyes we also hope win every week.”

Hinton said he continues to root for the Fighting Irish because of the relationships he made there, but he hasn't talked to many old Notre Dame associates.

Title talk: Coombs said the crowd on Saturday for the home game with Nebraska made that experience better even than going to the Sugar Bowl and Orange Bowl while at Cincinnati.

“I told my guys after the game, let's just plan on not losing anymore,” Coombs said. “This is fun.”

Coombs is the cornerbacks coach and cornerback Bradley Roby then broached the topic after the game of winning out and trying to finish No. 1 in the final AP poll. Meyer said Monday he doesn't want his players talking about a title.

“We're not going to talk about that stuff,” Meyer said. But he did talk to his players about moving to No. 8 in the AP poll, knowing his players would talk about it with their friends outside the football building.

“We don't talk about it in September,” Meyer said. “But once it gets going, absolutely, we'll talk about it.”

Also: Running back Carlos Hyde, who ran for 140 yards and four touchdowns against Nebraska, was the Big Ten's offensive co-player of the week, along with Michigan quarterback Denard Robinson. Philly Brown was named the special teams player of the week for his 76-yard punt return. The only previous Buckeye to be a conference player of the week was quarterback Braxton Miller in week three. …

Meyer said third-string quarterback Cardale Jones was suspended for the Nebraska game after he wrote on Twitter wondering why players had to go to class when their focus was football. “Very ignorant comment, but that's a 19-year-old making an ignorant comment, which makes him one of 460 million,” Meyer said. “So we're moving on. I've moved on already. We've had a good chat. He's very apologetic. He does go to class in case people want to check, and he's actually a heck of a kid. It kind of surprised me.” … Meyer said running back Jordan Hall is “not right yet” so the running back could miss a second straight game with a knee injury.